Like a college student around exam time, the past week I have been pulling all nighters to finish my book proposal. As one of the most important document in my life, I have been maticiulous about every aspect of writing this. Cross referencing notes and manuals, my world has been colored coded between highlighters and sticky notes. It needs to be pitch perfect if I want to pitch it to an editor.With most of the legwork behind me, I can now focus on formatting the pages correctly. Each aspect of the proposal is on it's own page, with the title 1/3 of the way down the paper and underlined. In the top right hand corner is a header with my title and name and adjacent to that is a page number. Underneath all this lies the meat. Double spacing all my text, I now have to let my voice shine through as I prove to a publisher why a book of my genre is necessary, how my story compares to others on the market, and show a detailed market analysis, complete with a plan for it's promotion. A task impossible to complete without doing some thorough homework on the subject.Though it took me months to perfect, I am proud to announce that I have my 20lb paper and fresh ink cartridge out and ready for use. Knowing that I can't trust a pair of eyes that have been up for 18 hours, I will wait on hitting the print button until my writing partner lives up to her responsibility and looks over my work with critiquing eyes. You can never trust spell check 100% when something this important is awaiting approval.Now that a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, I can finally turn my focus back on editing my book (which has been the easier of the two to write.) My new goal is to try and finish this process before I head back to work in the fall, but probably a more realistic expectation will be to work on a new chapter each week.I thought I would leave you with a picture that helps me to find a serence place whenever I get stuck. The water always helps to clear my head...filtering out the million things that run through it every minute, and allowing what I need to trickle out slowly and purposefully.

Author

I have the privilege of being able to shape the minds and lives of children who are battling disabilities. It can be very trying at times, but more often than not it is very rewarding. As a mother of a child with a disability, I know the struggles that they go through on a daily basis. This allows me to have a little more compassion for the people that I work with.